Creative Crisis: Why Fashion Still Praises Black Women as Muses but Refuses Them as Makers

Luxury fashion has reached a creative crisis: Black women are celebrated as muses but systematically excluded as makers. From Cardi B fronting Balenciaga to Rihanna’s long-standing partnership with Dior, Taraji P. Henson for Simkhai, and Lil’ Kim inspiring Marc Jacobs, Black women continue to shape the cultural narratives luxury brands sell to the world. Yet behind the scenes, the seats of power remain structurally closed. This contradiction is more than an equity issue it reveals the institutional choices that keep fashion stagnant.

The pattern is evident in how creative leadership is managed at the industry’s top houses. Demna, now leading Gucci, has been praised for honoring Tom Ford’s legendary collections. His vision is undeniable, but this reliance on archival reinterpretation reflects a structural problem: luxury houses would rather recycle the past than invest in new voices particularly those from marginalized communities. Paying homage has its place, but without structural shifts in who holds creative authority, the industry risks cultural stagnation.

This lack of innovation is inseparable from questions of access and power. While Black women are hyper-visible in campaigns and across social media, they are rarely if ever granted contracts that provide long-term stability, healthcare, or pathways to leadership. Our cultural authority is consistently used to sell collections but seldom recognized as a legitimate source of design leadership. In parallel, the women who sustain the industry through factory work, showroom management, and logistical labor often women of color remain excluded from executive decision-making. Fashion’s discourse on diversity and equity, when not tied to institutional commitments, becomes purely symbolic.

True representation must be structural and sustainable. Representation is not simply about visibility; it is about access to power. When Black women are confined to the role of muse, the industry loses the intellectual and creative capital their lived experiences bring. Consider Olivier Rousteing at Balmain or Dapper Dan’s collaborations with Gucci: both disrupted their houses by embedding new cultural perspectives within institutional frameworks. Imagine the transformation if Black women were systematically elevated to permanent creative leadership roles across the industry not as token campaigns, but as makers with authority to shift both design and strategy.

Until that happens, fashion’s creative crisis will persist. Celebrating Black women in glossy campaigns while systematically excluding them from leadership is not inspiration; it is exploitation. If the industry is serious about its future, it must stop relying on the archives of the past and begin investing in new voices with the authority to lead.

The question is clear: how many more seasons will fashion systematically praise Black women as muses while refusing to make them makers?

And this is only the beginning. Next week, I will dive further into this conversation on The Overdressed Black Girl Podcast, with an episode dropping Tuesday that unpacks what true diversity and leadership in fashion could look like.